


A Story Writ in Scars

by chaemera



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 02:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11347695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaemera/pseuds/chaemera





	A Story Writ in Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DT Maxwell (Draya)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draya/gifts).



It truly was a lovely day.

The breeze off Limsa Bay was just enough to ease the afternoon sun's heat, without being so strong as to be a nuisance. Birds sang and twittered, and Synnove Greywolfe regarded the notes fluttering gently on her clipboard.

"Ready, Galette?"

The Carbuncle sitting at her feet chirruped and trotted daintily away a few dozen paces, picking its way through the grass and wildflowers with a dignity that any highborn lady might show. Such a little fuss, it always made Synnove grin. With a jaunty flick of her tails, Galette plunked down and regarded her mistress with an expression somewhere between smug and disdainful.

Synnove wished she were as confident.

"Right, right, don't you get an attitude with me miss. Here we go."

Flipping open her grimoire to the prepared pages, she touched the enchanted stylus to the aetherconductive ink and began to feed power to the system. This was way out in the theoretical end of things, working off fragmentary data and a lot of inference, so there was a very real chance that nothing would happen. Or for things to start exploding.

Stop woolgathering girl, this is delicate.

She felt her own aether responding to the system taking shape between herself and her Carbuncle, rotating onto a new axis and filling in a 'shape' that was half physical, half merely a concept. She'd done work with "egi" and what little was known of the ancient art of summoning before, so this was not unfamiliar... but it had never been quite like this.

Never so... forceful.

Galette screamed.

As Synnove's eyes whipped up, the scream tore raggedly down several octaves as the Carbuncle's shape distorted, flickered, wisping away haphazardly at the edges like smoke in a breeze before...

Great dark wings spread against the sky, and a voice like mountains being torn apart thundered in her mind.

**_THIS VESSEL SHALL SERVE FOR NOW_ **

She was briefly in another place. Another time. A time of fire and smoke and terror.

**_IDENTIFY THE ENEMY YOU WISH TO ANNIHILATE_ **

Her stylus jabbed into the page almost hard enough to tear the paper, terminating the aetheric conduit and aborting the construct. With a wrench like her arm being torn out of its socket, the looming monster floating before her started to fold in on itself, collapsing like a house of cards towards a central point.

Both tome and knees skidded in the dirt as Synnove dove to catch the falling Carbuncle in her arms, burying her face in soft, glowing fur.

Trying to ignore the tears on her cheeks.

Trying not to see the way Galette's eyes were locked on some far distant point, glassy and empty.


End file.
